NTP is wrong by almost 3 minutes.

I've tried using the pfsense pool NTP servers and the NIST servers. I'm comparing the time from pfsense to the time on both my cell phone, and also the times when I go to the NIST website, and the US Navy time website. NIST, US Navy, and my cell phone all agree, and my pfsense box and desktop (connected to pfsense) both agree, but pfsense is almost three minutes faster than the US Navy, NIST & my cellphone.

I've tried restarting the service, just form looking at the RRD graphs is appears that the statistics have tightened up somewhat over the last month.

status, ntp - should show you what pfsense is using. Does it show reach of 377? Post up this screenshot.

Keep in mind ntp doesn't instantly change a devices clock. It adjusts the time of the device to sync up with its timesource and once in sync to stay there. If you graphing ntp stuff - lets look at just what its reporting for offset for a say the last day.. You can undo all the other stuff and just look at the offset.. You can see if its getting closer or just all over the board, etc..

OK thanks, here are the graphs and status. I'm also looking at the NTP widget on my pfsense dashboard, it does match up with my desktop clock and they have been for well over 24 hours since I first noticed this.

Other than not having 377 on your active server.. That all looks up and up.. Means your dropping packets to that server.. Also that your poll time is higher then your 256 setting.. Would point to having trouble talking to that server.

376 points to you have dropped the last packet, you will see reach cycle down to 177 until that no answer cycles through the 8 bit buffer..

So your saying this time is 3 minutes off?? Your ref ID is nist and your syncing off a stratum 1.. I find it very unlikely that time is off by 3 minutes from these servers.. Your currently showing offset of .033 millisecons.. or .000033 Seconds..

Where are you think pfsense time is off? The web gui status page? The time shown there??

edit: One thing I would suggest is you find some closer servers to sync off of.. Your delay is 70 some ms.. Look here for stratum 1's that are closer to you.. Find something in your state or region, etc.

I just added the widget, and then called up that nist page in another window and put them side by side and they show exact same time

I assume that page is pulling time from the ntp server and pfsense time.. But its a browser thing - maybe its pulling time from your local machine? Clearly what you posted is that the time is insync with its source only off by a few ms..

Off the top not sure would could account for the difference other than browser stuck not refreshing, etc.?

If you want to do a live check to see if pfsense clock is off you could use ntpdate in test mode with the -d and point it to the IP of any ntp server you want to check it against

I have been using time.nist.gov for a few days now and my NTP time is still off by a few minutes. System time now matches up but NTP has not resolved itself, I restarted the service over a day ago and it is still off by a few minutes.

Anyone know what the root problem is here, especially now that I am apparently not the only one seeing some issues with time?

The above shows that I am syncing with my Pi while my hp server and Cox Cable NTP servers are available as fallbacks.

The first column is the sync status and is covered in the http://www.ntp.org/ documentation. If you are not selecting servers and syncing to one of them you have a starting place to look for your problem.

I'd go look at at least the quick start at ntp.org and select either a pool or at least three servers to sync to before going on to look for other issues.

I finally got around to having a look at the code for the NTP widget. The "Server Time" field is created using some cute dynamic update code that plays games between the http server (aka pfSense) time and the http client browser time. The approach was likely state of the art… in 2003 when it was last updated. Seriously, the code lists compatibility as IE 4.x/5.0, Netscape 4.x/6.0, and Mozilla 1.0.

The short version is that this code is badly need of replacing, and until it is replaced the Server Time field in the NTP widget should simply be ignored.

I finally got around to having a look at the code for the NTP widget. The "Server Time" field is created using some cute dynamic update code that plays games between the http server (aka pfSense) time and the http client browser time. The approach was likely state of the art… in 2003 when it was last updated. Seriously, the code lists compatibility as IE 4.x/5.0, Netscape 4.x/6.0, and Mozilla 1.0.

The short version is that this code is badly need of replacing, and until it is replaced the Server Time field in the NTP widget should simply be ignored.

One more "as time permits" activity. :)

Wow, thank you so much for looking into this! I'm glad that this could resolve into something that will eventually be an improvement to pfSense!